What You Will Find on this Site

The Canadian Foundation for Economic Education (CFEE) has developed this site, which offers:

• A proposed consensus Canadian "guideline for economic literacy" [Economic Capabilities Guideline]

• A Curriculum Framework/Database that provides learning outcomes/expectations associated with the guideline. [Curriculum Database]

• Draft economics life skills courses/themes that capture the most essential learning outcomes/ expectations related to day-to-day economic life. [Economics Life Skills Courses]

• A curriculum organization and development tool to help those who are reviewing, revising, or developing curriculum to more easily and effectively use this site [CODE]

• Access to the curricula that has been developed across Canada related to economics, entrepreneurship, and enterprise [Provincial/Territorial Curricula]

• Information on and links to resources and organizations that can support instruction related to economics, enterpreneurship, and enterprise [Resources]

• An opportunity for those involved in reviewing, revising, and developing economics, entrepreneurship, and enterprise curriculum to link and communicate with each other [Forum]

• A glossary of relevant terms [Glossary]

The following is background information about what led us to develop this site and its content.

CFEE's Mission

The Canadian Foundation for Economic Education (CFEE) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization founded in 1974 to assist and promote economic education and understanding in Canada. Over the years, the Foundation has undertaken a wide array of projects and initiatives in collaboration with educators, school boards, provinces, territories, private sector companies, labour organizations, consumer groups, and various departments of the federal government. Together, these organizations, individuals, and efforts have led Canada to the point where it is considered a world leader in this field. CFEE's mission is to identify and foster the economic capabilities that will enable Canadians to undertake their economic decisions and responsibilities with confidence and competence.

Need for Consensus

Over the many years of CFEE's activities and experience, it became apparent that a significant barrier to increased "economic literacy" was the lack of consensus regarding what it means to be "economically literate." Many people and organizations are in support of increased economic literacy—but what does that mean?

EconomicsCanada Project

This need for focus and consensus led to the creation of the EconomicsCanada project, a collaborative effort led by CFEE and involving Canadians from all walks of life—and representatives from provincial departments/ministries of education—to establish a consensus regarding what Canadians need to know to undertake their economic decisions and actions with confidence and competence.

Economic Capabilities Guideline

The first thing we set out to do was to develop a consensus working guideline for economic literacy. You can access that document by clicking on the Economic Capabilities Guideline button on the left.

The Concept of Economic Literacy

Interestingly, as we set out to develop a consensus guideline for economic literacy, we heard from Canadians that they wanted more. They wanted more than a set of "understandings"—they also wanted attention assigned to things such as skills, attitudes, attributes, and values.

Desire for More than Understanding

To develop a guideline for "literacy" limits one primarily to a "content outline" and specifications of target "knowledge." To address such things as attitudes and values, we would have to extend the limits of what one could reasonably refer to as literacy requirements. Furthermore, some from the literacy field were concerned that the term "economic literacy" might not be the most appropriate to capture all that was hoped for through this initiative.

Desire for Inclusion of "Enterprising Skills"

For example, respondents strongly urged us to include more target outcomes related to the skills, attitudes, and attributes associated with being entrepreneurial or enterprising. Many see entrepreneurial skills, attitudes, and attributes as important to anyone who is looking to participate in the economy today—whether employed or self-employed.

CFEE has long been an advocate of entrepreneurship as a "life skill." However, a guideline for economic literacy does not easily enable one to specify related target outcomes. The attributes, attitudes, and skills important to being entrepreneurial or enterprising are not supported by some as having a home within an economic literacy outline. Some economists, in fact, advocated striking the words entrepreneur, entrepreneurial, and enterprising from the entire document claiming that they didn't fit. Our choice, therefore, was to either adhere strictly to the boundaries established by an economic literacy guideline or alter the goal and expand our targets to enable us to better address areas that were seen by many Canadians as extremely important. We believe the latter will better serve Canadians, and we have, therefore, revised our project goal.

An "Economic Capabilities Guideline"

The goal became one of developing a consensus document summarizing what Canadians need, in terms of knowledge and skills, to undertake their economic roles and responsibilities with confidence and competence. To that end, and through a widespread consultative process, we have produced the document entitled Economic Capabilities Guideline. This document has served as the basis for the development of the Curriculum Database and Economics Life Skills courses/themes that are available in other sections of this site.

Our goal now is for this document to stand as a reference and guide for all of those who are involved, or who will become involved, in efforts to help enhance the economic capability of Canadians. The following is additional material to help you understand the purpose, role, and content of the Economic Capabilities Guideline.

Economic Capability: Defined

By "economic capability," we mean the knowledge, attitudes, attributes, and skills that will help Canadians to undertake their economic roles and responsibilities with confidence and competence and help to empower individual Canadians and households to achieve economic success—however a person chooses to define it—partnered with a sense of passion (for what each believes in) and compassion (for the conditions and needs of others). It is important to stress that we are not implying in this document that in order to be "economically capable" a person must be equipped with all the knowledge, attitudes, skills, and so forth outlined in this Guideline. Rather, this Guideline identifies what should help a person to enhance/improve his or her economic capability.

Economic Success: Defined

When reference is made to "economic success" in this document, we are not assuming that economic success implies earning more income and achieving higher wealth and improved material well-being. Success may mean achieving happiness, a sense of fulfillment, a sense of accomplishment, the ability to help others, simply having a job, putting a comfortable roof over one's head, taking care of one's children and family members, the establishment of an enterprise (for profit or not for profit) or any one of innumerable other things. It may mean working in or building a labour union, establishing or working for a consumer protection organization, and so on.

In all of these areas, however, it is assumed that one succeeds by taking some kind of initiative to achieve one's personal goals that, if achieved, would define success for that person. Therefore, there is no assumption that economic success relates to material well-being but that economic success is to be defined by the individual, household, organization, or society for whatever each wants it to be. A person's goals will determine a personal notion of economic success. This acknowledges that achieving economic success is not an end into itself. Economic success is a means to an end and empowers one to achieve personal goals and accomplish those things in life that each of us sees as important.

Economic Capability: Individual versus Societal

An economically capable person is one who feels confident and competent in his/her ability to undertake economic roles, responsibilities, decisions, and actions. To that end, an individual's economic capability should be enhanced the more that he/she is able to:

• Establish of a set of goals (short-term and long-term) that he/she values and is committed to working to try to achieve and that will determine a personal notion of economic success

• Acquire the relevant skills that are important to achieving personal goals and economic success

• Acquire the knowledge and understanding of economic concepts that are relevant to personal economic roles, decisions, responsibilities, and actions

• Develop the ability to apply relevant economic concepts to economic problems, issues, and circumstances that affect economic choices, decisions, and actions

• Accumulate the experiences of accomplishment to the point where he/she feels confident about being able to overcome obstacles, affect outcomes, and achieve personal goals and economic success

• Integrate an ability to look beyond self-interest, recognize the implication of interdependence, and maintain a personal regard for the well-being of others in the family, community, province, nation, and world at large

• Develop the willingness and ability to learn that which is relevant to achieving one's goals and economic success

• Develop an awareness of, and ability to respond effectively to, forces of change that will have an impact on the achievement of personal goals and economic success

Passion and Compassion

In all of the work that CFEE has been involved with focusing on economic literacy and identifying the factors most highly correlated with economic success, we have been struck by two key related priorities.

First, all of the evidence shows that the single most important factor related to economic success is passion—a belief in something, a desire to do something, a love for something, a drive to accomplish something. Many told us that, given a person with passion, they can almost assure some form of success. Yes, they can help in imparting knowledge, skills, and advice, and provide opportunities for experience, but the passion—the desire—is the key. Even if the person fails, he or she will more than likely use the failure as a learning experience and as a stepping-stone to future success. Finding the keys to passion seems to be extremely important and lies at the root of pathways to success.

At the same time, however, as much as passion is seen as one of the primary keys to success, there is a very broad concern among Canadians about compassion. That is, if we accept that passion underlies success, there is a concern that a sense of compassion also exist within those who achieve success.

This is particularly the case for those who achieve success in terms of wealth and material well-being. Canadians are very concerned about the consequences of successful efforts to empower people to achieve economic success. They do not want a society in which some, or relatively few, improve themselves at the expense of others. They are concerned that those who achieve/acquire more do so with a sense of compassion and concern for others who have not achieved similar accomplishments or who are hindered in some way from doing so.

By compassion, we are referring to a concern for the well-being of others—those in our local communities, those in our country, and those in other nations around the world. It is hoped that those who define and achieve economic success by acquiring more or doing better will do so through means that generate benefits for others—directly and indirectly, intentionally and unintentionally. Although it is acknowledged that there can be both direct/indirect and intentional/unintentional benefits generated by those who accomplish, achieve, and improve, it appears that Canadians aim for more than the indirect and unintentional benefits. They aspire to a country where there is a conscious, direct, intentional concern on the part of those who do better and acquire more to help others who are in need or in positions of economic disadvantage.

In conclusion, we believe that this Guideline (by providing knowledge, understanding, target attributes, attitudes, and skills) can help to instill a sense of passion in many Canadians, focusing on personal goals and taking initiative and actions to achieve economic success-however it is personally defined.

This stems from our belief that passion will come from greater self-confidence inspired by knowledge and understanding, insight to opportunity, establishment of clear personal priorities, and belief in one's own abilities to accomplish established goals. But efforts stemming from, or based upon, the contents of this Guideline will need to assign a similar priority to helping to instill a sense of compassion to accompany the power associated with passion. Canadians appear more than willing to accept accomplishments and achievements stemming from passion, knowledge, and skills but only insofar as they ride tandem with a sense of compassion and concern for the well-being of others.

We believe the dual goals of passion and compassion stand together as desirable targets to be associated with all efforts related to this Guideline and EconomicsCanada initiatives.

Integration of Entrepreneurial/Enterprising Component

Most people now regard entrepreneurial and enterprising skills as related to basic life skills and, thus, relevant to everything we do—not just starting new small businesses. CFEE undertook a major research initiative for the federal government to identify those factors most widely regarded as highly correlated with entrepreneurial success—how to successfully create, establish, start, operate, and grow a successful business. Our research indicated that the important factors were deemed relevant not only to entrepreneurial success but to success in trying to achieve any goals. (Click below to access Catching the Wave, the report on this research.)

Catching the Wave PDF File (Suitable for Printing - Adobe Acrobat Reader required) (PDF: 726 KB)

A key finding from the research was that, as much as various skills are important, the most important factors related to potential success are more attitudinal. As a result, we have included in this Guideline those attributes and attitudes that are seen by various authorities around the world as most highly correlated with the potential for success in achieving one's goals.

Specific Outcomes/Expectations

Beyond the general "guideline," there was a need to move further to more detailed, specific outcomes—that is, put more "meat on the bones" to help curriculum developers. The need for more detailed target outcomes led to the development of the "Curriculum Framework" and "Database," which is provided in another section of this site.

Key Economic Roles and Responsibilities

If economic capability relates to economic roles and responsibilities, just what roles and responsibilities do we mean? The following is an outline of the key economic roles and responsibilities faced by Canadians and that call upon Canadians to make decisions and undertake action. These roles and responsibilities should be kept in mind as the main drivers/determinants of what has been included in the Economic Capabilities Guideline.

Personal and Household Financial Affairs and Management Actions and decisions related to such areas as: Buying Borrowing Paying Taxes Volunteering Saving Investing Leisure Insuring and Protecting Work-Related Activities Actions and decisions related to such areas as: Career Planning Home-based activity Work: Providing services as an employee Pursuing self-employment, new ventures, employer responsibilities Providing volunteer services Participating in union/worker organizations Balancing work and leisure/ work and family Canadian Citizenship Actions and decisions related to such areas as: Political debates/issues and deliberating policy options Voting decisions Community involvement and participation Volunteer and philanthropic activities Global Citizenship Actions and decisions related to such areas as: Factors that will affect our interrelationships with other nations Concern for the welfare of people in other nations Participation in production activity targeted for international trade Consumption of products and services provided by other nations Travel to other nations Caretaker Actions and decisions related to our concerns and responsibilities for the welfare of others: in our household in our local community in our province/territory in our country in other nations those who will follow in future generations and who will inherit a world in an economic and environmental state left by the previous generation

These roles and responsibilities served as the foundation for creating the Economic Capabilities Guideline. In turn, the Economic Capabilities Guideline served as the foundation for developing:

(a)   The Curriculum Framework/Database—The Framework represents the collection of learning outcomes/expectations that relate to these key roles and responsibilities and that were derived from the consultations that asked the question: What do Canadians need to know to be able to undertake their economic roles and responsibilities with confidence and competence?

(b)   The Economics Life Skills Courses—These two proposed courses/themes capture the outcomes/expectations seen as most important and most relevant to daily economic life. They represent the target "minimum" that young people should understand about their economic world prior to independently assuming life's economic roles and responsibilities.